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Going Green - Matcha Green Tea & Oats

Saturday, 13 June 2009

After my first attempt in making a matcha dessert - green tea filling for my failed macarons, I've never used the green stuff again. When I saw matcha oats on Sophia's blog, burp and slurp, I immediately bookmarked it because it involves oats I looove. I really enjoyed it - every spoon was bursting with wonderful matcha flavour and matcha seems to go very well with creamy stuff. After learning the many benefits of matcha which you will see below, I am definitely having this more often.

Glad I found out about this event because I learnt a lot from googling about this amazing green stuff. I know green tea has many benefits, but didn't know that it's that good. So here's a bit about the super green powder - matcha:

Matcha basically means rubbed or ground green tea and is used traditionally in Japanese Tea Ceremony. Matcha green tea plants are grown shaded before harvesting resulting in slower growth, higher chlorophyll (the good green stuff that has detoxifying properties) and production of amino acids. After harvesting, the leaves are dried, graded, de-stemmed and de-veined. The leaves selected for matcha (tencha) is then ground to matcha. High quality matcha should appear greener, and also taste 'greener', sweeter and more intense in flavour.

Why matcha & is it worth every penny?

There are many types of green tea and matcha is known to be the most nutrient-rich green tea because you fully ingest the powdered tea, unlike other tea leaves which you discard after brewing. In terms of the potent antioxidant Epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), matcha green tea is 137 times the amount in normal green tea! Not only that, 1 glass of matcha green tea has 2 times the antioxidants of a glass of red wine, 9 times the beta-carotene of spinach, 4 times that of carrots and 70 times of orange juice!

Here's an ever growing list of some facts & benefits:

Has one of the highest ORAC values (oxygen radical absorption), thus a powerful antioxidant which has anti-angeing benefits and offer protection against certain diseases. More on ORAC here.

Has L-theanine which not only contribute to matcha's distinctive aroma and flavour but also promote relaxation and focused attention.

Contains small amount of caffeine and is absorbed over 6-8 hours instead of sudden boost of caffeine which is absorbed quickly from drinking coffee.

Sugar-free

High in Fiber

and the list goes on...all in all, it is VERY GOOD for you.

The proper way of preparing matcha is to use a matcha bowl, bamboo scoop (chashaku) and a bamboo whisk (chasen). You whisk the matcha powder and water in a bowl until frothy and then drink it immediately. But you can still enjoy this flavourful tea with just a teaspoon and a cup! Matcha has also been widely used in cooking especially desserts such as ice-cream, cakes, pastries, cookies and the like. Head over to burp and slurp for more interesting use of matcha!

Pigpig,Your cooking always gives me a WOW~I've never thought about putting matcha with oats in cooking, very interesting combination. Matcha is one of my favourite food. I always use it to make desserts. Mmm...really want to stretch my taste boundary and try this recipe.

Who is this brilliant Sophia who inspired you? I'd like to meet her! hahahaaha!Man, another great post celebrating the greatness and superiority of matcha...I LOVE it! You went way over mine with the additional nutritional info on matcha! YAY!and your oats look darn awesome! Another way I love to eat it is with white chocolate peanut butter on top!Sadly, my store of matcha is sharply dwindling...:-( I need to conserve and ration what I have left!

Great idea. I love matcha tea and am always looking for interesting ways to use it. I found a great place to buy matcha online: www.matchasource.com. Their "Gotcha Matcha" is great in recipes. I regularly use it in smoothies to get an extra anti-oxidant boost.

This looks great! I think it will be my new favorite breakfast. I drink Matcha daily and love it! Initially I wasn't sure where to buy it but then found matchasource.com. They give lots of information and recipe ideas as well as a range of Matcha products. If you are cooking with it or mixing it, you can use a less expensive grade sometimes called ingredient grade, but when I drink it alone I use a higher grade.

The positively easiest way to drop those extra inches from your waist and other body parts is to incorporate Matcha Green Tea into your daily routine. Matcha offers all-natural thermongenics which drastically help with weight reduction by improving heat and energy production, which tells your body to burn off more calories. This is basically an increase in metabolism and it can be as much as a 40% increase, just from drinking Matcha! Many people have been able to shed the weight they weren't able to lose with other programs simply by incorporating Matcha Green Tea into their diet. A lot of people have also reported other outstanding health benefits from drinking matcha such as a reduction of sinus congestion, mood elevation, a reduction of PMS symptoms, and lower cholesterol and blood pressure.

This is very interesting recipe. I'm a tea lover as well and anything that has a tea flavor in it always worth checking it out and try it. I've never had this before, I'd love to try this. Thanks for this recipe. Have a good day.